Last week Brendan wrote in from São Paulo after an evening listening to Ailton Krenak. Today, he’s checking in from Rio de Janeiro where for the last few days he’s been attending a conference on narrative change in Latin America.
Whether you’re working in the region or not, I wanted to share a few general takeaways on narrative change principles so far that I think can help inform the work that each of us in the larger Bio4Climate community are doing across contexts.
1. Prioritizing short and long-term storytelling. Archiving and sharing stories that connect to immediate struggles, the kind that mobilize action and meet people where they are today, but that also nest inside a larger arc of transformation.
2. Narrative change doesn’t happen in isolation. It requires rooting stories in lived realities: the politics people navigate, the cultures they belong to, and the social bonds they rely on.
3. Are the tactics we’re using actually aligned with the futures we imagine, or are they perpetuating old patterns and reinforcing old social or political ecosystems?
4. Mapping areas of consensus, creating spaces for dialogue, and investing in the infrastructure to hold alliances over time are just as important as the narratives and stories themselves.
How do these things manifest in your work and your activism? What would you add?
Posted: September 29, 2025